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Monday, June 27, 2016

As I've explained last autumn in my The End of Steel blog about a small layout, I've been exploring the possibility to model the Connors Subdivision on Temiscouata Railway which was nested between Quebec, New Brunswick and Maine borders.

This particular prototype have caught my attention many years ago and I' gradually working on a layout plan that would make the best of the prototype.

While several resources online exists, I exhausted them and I'm know seeking fresh information to make the planning progress.

What I have:

-Some timetables.

-Many locomotive pictures.

-A locomotive roster.

-Pictures of Edmunston and Connors stations.

-Very few rolling stock picture (a business car, a combine, a caboose, some flat cars and one boxcar).

The most interesting spot to model is Connors, a terminus with a turntable and a small engine house. According to pictures, there was a section house, a coal shed, a speeder shed, a freight station, a water tank and a passenger station obviously. I don't know the paint scheme for the building. It varied in time, at first very dark (probably the ubiquitous red oxyde) and later paler (maybe some buff or tan with dark trims). Also, I'm starting to seriously believe the engine house had two stall. It makes sense since 2 trains departed from Connors each morning and a 1890 panoramic view seems to indicate the building is too large to be single stall.

What I need:

I've found almost nothing about the stations and customers between Connors and Edmunston. I have a description of every siding and passing tracks with their lenght, but no indication about their purpose.

I'm aware there was at least one sawmill and there's evidence in Google Earth that a feedmill was rail served at some point. I've seen no picture of stations. Logically, at least Clair and Baker Brook should have been relatively important stops on the subdivision.

Also, it seems almost every bridge on that subdivision was a wood trestle. There was a steel truss bridge, but I have failed to locate it. Maybe it was on the Rivière-du-Loup subdivision.

I'm well aware these informations can only be obtained from local sources at this point. If you have some clues or hints or know a person or an institution that could provide more evidence about this interesting branchline, let me know.

By the way, I'm not in a hurry as the building that will house that layout as yet to be built. However, I prefer to get more information before starting to plan than feel sorry later for overlooking interesting bits of history.

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Yesterday was an excellent occasion to railfan Roberval Saguenay Railway located in Saguenay City, Quebec. This industrial shortline is operated by Rio Tinto Alcan and serves 4 aluminium plants located with a 25 miles areas. Rio Tinto receives its raw material in La Baie harbour (formerly known as Port-Alfred) were large sea vessels find extensive unloading facilities there on the head of Saguenay Fjord. The railway mainly carry alumine, bauxite, coal, oil, chemicals and large aluminium lingots.

La Baie harbour (Saguenay)

It is interesting to note that the original charter of Quebec Montmorency & Charlevoix Railway was supposed to reach Saguenay and connect with Quebec & Lake St. John Railway. Noteworthy is the fact both lines were built in the same years by Horace Jansen Beemer and both were supposed to be originating from the same station in Quebec City. Had it been completed, it would have made one continuous loop around the Laurentian Mountains and would have probably made one of the most scenic railway in North American.

Several factors prevented this to happen. First, Q&LSt.J railhead never reached La Baie. It was merged into Canadian Northern a few years later and the connection to the depth water harbour only happened later as an industrial railway. On the other side, QM&C never extended beyond St. Joachim and only later the project was revived by Rodolphe Forget how originally founded the first pulp mill in Clermont. He would build the line from St. Joachim to Clermont, however, the difficult terrain and topography made the endeavour a thought one. Since the terrain was getting worst toward Saguenay river and that the fjord itself was the most unsuitable place to build a railway, the line never reached its original terminal.

With all that said, we left Quebec City at 7:30 in the morning and reached La Baie at 10:00 after casually driving at different railfanning key spots we would later visit again. The most impressive feature of this short railway is an impressive horseshoe curve climbing a very steep gradient. At this point, the track leaves the low lands of Mars River to reach a higher plateau on which the aluminium plants are located. Just to give you an idea, within about 5 miles you have a deep water harbour, a highway overpass over a yard, a small yard, a multiple span steel bridge, a tunnel under a road, a horseshoe curve with a wye located within it and a very steep gradient where you can see the train crawl on a cut made on the hills. That's quite impressive and given the fact the train pulled loaded cars (between 20 to 30 cars) against the hill make a very nice and classic sight. To be truth, this section of the line could make a very fine medium-sized layout with a wonderful stretch of main line.

Now, let's tour the key features of the railway in La Baie area. The first sport is a small storage yard located on the shore of the bay. This is where the QM&C (CN Murray Bay Subdivision) should have connected.

Roberval Saguenay owns many cars including these interesting bulheak flat cars used to ship aluminium lingots. They can be seen on CN Lake St. John Subvision quite often. They would make an interesting kitbashing or scratchbuilding project.

The highway overpass is strategically located over the harbour trackage. Not only it is a legal and safe railfanning spot, but the vantage point is excellent to see every aspect of operation in this area. Several bauxite and alumine warehouse and conveyor can be seen in the back. It must be noted the dust seems to be extremely corrosive and we observed severe weathering in the harbour area but also near the four aluminium plants. However, it must be noted RS property is neat and very well-maintained at Class I levels I had say.

At left there is a long oil unloading platform. Most of it didn't seem
to be in used recently because the rails were heavily rusted.

The brown
building in the middle is the railway offices. Coal gondolas await to be picked up by out train in the center background.

Some shots of the oil platform.

The platform was lenghtened at some point in its history.

This is a general shot of the yard throat on the other side of the overpass (looking west toward Mars river). Notice the other oil (mazout) platform at right. This one is in frequent use. You'll notice most switches on Roverval Saguenay are remote controlled and heated, even on industrial siding. This make operations simpler and faster. The morning train we followed was built within less than 15 minutes. Very little time was wasted between moves and the locomotives were almost always running at a steady pace. As Louis-Marie summed it up, it was at "layout pace".

Almost under the overpass is a neat little brick mazout pumphouse by the reservoirs dyke.

The reservoirs are medium-sized and covered with corrugated steel. The weathering pattern is nice and these reservoirs could be easily bashed with cardboard tubes and finely corrugated cardboard found in art store at a very budget price.

Regarding the train we followed, it was pulled by a consist of 1 GE locomotive and 2 geeps. While they may look dirty from above, they were quite clean when seen from a normal angle. Their bright paint scheme makes them extremely easy to spot in the landscape when railfanning. The train itself was made of nine coal gondolas, four tank cars and seventeen cylindrical hoppers for a total of 30 cars. On the picture, the right spur leads
to the storage yard by the bay.

The overpass was an excellent spot to make good roof shots. Weathering locomotives and cars roofs is hard when you don't have reliable sources of information. I thought it would nice to document that for the reader's sake. Here's the GE unit in all its glory. Note how the grimy weathering occurs on EVERY horizontal surface. Also, very clean and very dirty areas are quite contrasting and show that a coat of weathering should done in a uniform fashion.

Here are the coal (or coke?) gondolas with their extended sides. It may sounds strange, but it was the first time in my life I ever witnessed a real coal (or coke) load moving on a railway! The large hydroelectric ressources of Quebec made coal almost irrelevant in La Belle Province since the late 50s and early 60s. You only see it in some industrial processes. To me, this very common fuel is among the most alien commodity you can think of!

The next shot is taken from about half a mile from the harbour. I was standing on the sidewalk of the road over the short tunnel. You can see Mars river bridge in the background at left.

An other shot from the tunnel road. Mard river can be seen at right. Unfortunately, the fields are now longer in culture and this railfan spot will be gone within two decades. Vegetation grow should never be underestimated. Many beautiful landscapes are only possible with agriculture keeping the panorama open.

The tunnel was also another great railfanning spot and I though it would be a nice idea to shot cylindrical hopper roofs for the sake of weathering reference. Note the diversity of weathering pattern on the same batch of cars. Many of them are ex-Canpotex cars and you can see a ghost of the original lettering behing the grey paint.

After this point, the train sped up to gather momentum to climb the gradient of Mars river valley at horseshoe curve. From this point out, we chased the train and had very little time to stop en route. Roberval Saguenay may be a shortline, but forget about slow crawling trains. This is an efficient company with a signaled mainline (they use customized road signals for that purpose). It was almost impossible to take pictures at the horseshoe curve wye or on the grade. These are very photogenic spots but one have to carefully plan his shots ahead because there's no second chance and you can't railfan every spots in one chase.

I'd like to show some horseshow curves because the area have a feeling of West Virginia and other appalachian coal roads.

After a few miles we reach a large plant in Jonquières (Via Rail and CN terminal). Our train quickly left its cars in the yard and within a matter of a few seconds (not minutes!) a switcher picked up the cars and started to spot them. In a matter of 10 minutes, each car was spotted! If you look carefully, you can see the Montreal-bound VIA Rail train parked on a siding in the foreground at right.

Jonquières used to have extensive railway facilities including shops and a turntable. From that busy past remain an old turntable rotting in the middle of an industrial wasteland. It was still in use a few years ago to turn VIA Rail dome cars. While the wood ties are seriously rotten, an almost brand-new (let's say no more than 5 years old) motorization mechanism power the turntable.

Nearby, there is one of those boring and spartan modern railway shops. While a ugly in real life, this building would make a very neat structure on any modern layout. The size is just right.

Unfortunately for us, we didn't see other trains that day. While Roberval Saguenay is usually a very busy line, it was Saturday... just after Quebec's national holiday thus it probably explained the very limited amount of activity. Nevertheless, what we saw was worth the 500 km round trip we did as the weather was fine (except a few local storms in Saguenay) and the Laurentian landscape inspiring.

Also, the Roberval Saguenay line is just like the Raspberry Branch in Eastern Township. Wild berries grow all over the place, including raspberries, will cherries, strawberries and even gooseberries (my favourite). Only the strawberries were ripe for consumption . however they were excellent and among the largest wild strawberries I ever say in my life, some averaging almost 3/4 inches in lenght.

On the return trip to Quebec City, we decided to take a more obscure backwood road commonly called "la Route du Petit Parc" (The Little Park Road in reference to Laurentides National Park). This is a road linking La Baie to Baie-Saint-Paul and crossing some of the most impressive Laurentian Mountains including Parc des Grands Jardins. Mountain lakes and steep cliffs covered in pinetrees dominate the landscape while the road twist in the most improbable ways to cross water divide of several rivers including Malbaie River were Donohue gets its wood. More than once we encountered steep grade over 18% and sharp curves... I would definitely not drive there in bad weather.

Unfortunately, pictures utterly fail to represent the sheer majesty of this mighty landscape.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

For the
upcoming weeks, Hedley-Junction will take a break while the layout room is
refurbished. Some mechanical appliances are due to be replaced and a long due
in depth cleaning will follow.

Meanwhile,
we will focus our energy on our smaller layout project depicting Erie Railroad’s
149th Street Harlem Station in New York City circa the mid-1950s. If
you ever heard about Tim Warris’ Bronx Terminal, this is a similar prototype located
in the same area but with a much more user-friendly track work.

You can
follow this interesting endeavour at harlem-station.blogspot.com. Those
familiar with the late Carl Arendt micro-layout website will remember this project
was featured on his website in the early 2010s as a “reply” to Jack Trollope’s
creative reinterpretation of this fascinating prototype. I’m pretty sure Carl
would have been delighted to hear the layout is now in operation mode.

Sunday, June 5, 2016

I've never been a big fan of Facebook, but truth to be told, it's been crucial to put this project back on track. I'm fine with the blog to document the layout, but the readership doesn't reach a lot of people. In that respect, one day on Facebook provided new fresh data than I ever got about this car in the last months.

A big thanks goes to Justin Babcock who provided CN specification sheets about the Transcona cars. I'm curious to see how my drawings will fare against them!

Steve Boyko also provided a few pictures. Nothing ground breaking, but they are sharp and the lighting was good enough to document the coupler pocket and other similar details which is good to refine the model.

I'm also in the process of contacting the Canadian Science & Technology Museum and Exporail. We never know.

That said, I'm still looking for data about the underframe. That's going to be the biggest challenge.

Friday, June 3, 2016

On many occasion, I posted about my endeavour to make a credible model of a prototypical Canadian National woodchip gondola. Particularly the most iconic of them - the CN 1982 Transcona-built gondola... Yep, the CN RAIL one (series 878XXX).

A Mari Usque Ad Mare

This model is one of those the most iconic modern canadian freight car ever built (this list include the celebrated cylindrical grain hopper indeed). For nearly 40 decades, it has run on canadian rails from East to West. This car is at home in the Rockies, in Central Canada, along the St. Lawrence River and in the Atlantic area.

A typical CN Transcona woodchip gondola (credit: cnrphotos.com)

Not only it is iconic, but it is a car that plays a central role in the paper industry, one of the largest rail customers not so long ago.

Take a look at any sizeable canadian layout out there and chances you run into a paper mill are high... very high! I can't count how many times modellers told me about these CN Rail cars and how it's a shame no decent woodchip cars are available.

Over the last months, it became clear to me the demand for such a car was far bigger than I thought. Since a few years, we have been lucky by seeing RTR prototypically correct newsprint boxcars, now it's time to move forward by taking the next step...

We Need You!

Unfortunately, there's a limit to what a single man can achieve... Yes, I did my homework and made quite accurate drawings and 3D models of the car using official data from CN Freight Equipment Catalogue and pictures.

So far, the substructure is done at 90% and only need some minor refiment. However, I have absolutely no data about the underframe and other hidden details.

My 3D printed prototype. Note the incorrect decals.

The catch is that we need that data to make sure the car is good enough to see the light. Whatever knowledge you have about these cars, let me know. Every bit of information can help make it better.

Also, CN also had another set of woodchip cars built by NSC in 1975 (series 879XXX). They are very similar to the Transcona ones. If you have data about these ones as well, I'll gladly take the challenge and make a decent 3D model.

A typical NSC woodchip gondola (credit: cnrphotos.com)

No, we won't build the Intercolonial Railway again or the Canadian Pacific main line in the Rockies, but don't forget trains are getting trendy again. So it's a golden opportunity for you to help us to bridge a gap in Canadian railway modelling once for all!

About The Club

Our layout is about capturing small-time branchline railroading in Eastern Canada during the early 80s. Built by three modellers, this HO layout is mainly dedicated to the Old Capital former CN Murray Bay Subdivision linking together Quebec City, Montmorency & Charlevoix counties. We also share an interest in its former constituant railways including Canadian National Railway (CNR) and Quebec Railway Light & Power Co. (QRL&PCo).

The original founding crew, still in active service since February 2007, is made of Louis-Marie Huot (Provincial Government Official), Matthieu Lachance (Architect, O.A.Q.) and Jérôme Langlois-Lavoie (real-life Locomotive Engineer). Many fellow "brakemen" assist the group on an irregular basis.

A special thanks goes to the late Mr. Jean-Pierre Veilleux (†2016) who was a precious source of historic facts and a dedicated railfan since the early 50s onward.